Cheshire Police is currently undergoing a reorganisation of how it polices local communities, with a number of changes being introduced from today (Monday, 6th July).
These include replacing the nineteen Neighbourhood Policing Units with eight Local Policing Units which means some Police Officers and PCSOs will be briefed at stations outside of their beat before travelling to start their shift.
However, local members of staff will continue to book on at Wilmslow Station "for the immediate future".
Following a pilot in Ellesmere Port, the Constabulary is moving to implement the Local Policing Unit model across the country.
The new Local Policing Units bring together staff involved in responding to calls, neighbourhood problem solving, intelligence officers and investigators to start their shift together and be briefed across the teams simultaneously.
Assistant Chief Constable Mark Roberts explained "The pilot showed by bringing together staff in this way produced major benefits as they were able to share their knowledge and maximise opportunities for working across teams, better supervision and leadership and ensured the right person was sent to deal with the crime or incident at the earliest opportunity.
"Bringing staff on in one place will also allow the organisation to make better choices concerning the use of resources such as the vehicle fleet to get more efficient use of patrol cars to get to where we are needed when we are needed quickly whilst maintaining a local visible presence with officers on foot patrol in their local community."
Mark Roberts continued "Detailed work has been has been carried out to ensure the move to bring staff together at the beginning of the shift in this way adds value to their work and delivers more visible patrol time in communities. Time spent travelling between booking on stations and beats has been looked at, and whilst it will be kept under review, we are confident that it will not impact on the service we provide to the public."
The stations where officers will start the shifts will be: Blacon in Chester, Ellesmere Port, Northwich, Widnes, Runcorn, Warrington, Macclesfield, and Crewe with Wilmslow remaining as booking on station for staff "for the immediate future".
ACC Mark Roberts said "We have also put in place local community bases for officers to work from and are providing officers with mobile technology (tablet devices) which means they will be spending more of their time in their communities without returning to stations to update or research tasks."
Despite having to make a further £30m worth of savings over the next four years, Cheshire Police has announced they will be putting more officers into front line policing. They will be recruiting 53 new police officers, maintaining the current level of PCSOs and allocating a PCSO to every electoral ward.
ACC Mark Roberts added "To achieve this, we have streamlined management costs and made significant non-pay savings.
"This move follows a review of spending to assess how we can be more efficient and meet current and future operational and financial challenges by making different choices about how we use our assets and resources."
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The Parish Council will continue to work with the police to ensure that, once redevelopment work has been completed, a base can be provided for our PCSO at the Festival Hall.